Friday, 13 December 2013

The Irish ‘Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act’, signed into law last
July, will allow abortions to be carried out where there is a threat to the
life of the mother.

It does not, however, allow abortion when the life of the
baby is at risk.

Campaigners in Ireland are now seeking to change this and
are up to their usual
tricks of inflating statistics.

On 13 November the Irish Journal reported
on a campaign by a group called ‘Terminations for Medical Reasons’ (TFMR) who
argued that 1,500 Irish women per year carried babies with fatal fetal
abnormalities:

‘About 1,500 cases of
fatal fetal abnormalities are reported each year in Ireland with about 80 per
cent of the women travelling abroad for early inducement or
terminations. Members of TFMR were devastated of the omission from the
legislation this year but vowed to take their cases to Europe and beyond.’

80% of 1,500 is 1,200! Given that around 4,000 Irish women have abortions in England and Wales each year this would suggest that almost one third of them are having them for fatal fetal abnormalities. That sounds a wee bit high to me.

So where did this figure of 1,500 come from? The earliest reference
to it that I can find seems to be from the same group (TFMR) on 27 May this
year, reported in Breaking
News Ireland.

Since this time it appears to have been picked up
uncritically by the Irish media.

According to the Irish
Times on 26 June, during the debate over the bill, Independent TD John
Halligan (pictured below), ‘pointed out’ that 1,500
women in Ireland each year
had to deal with a pregnancy where the baby would live for just minutes outside the womb (emphasis mine).

The figure was repeated uncritically by the Irish
Examiner a day later.

To my knowledge not one of these news outlets has since
retracted nor corrected the claim, with the exception of the Irish Independent
who published an article
by Niamh Ui Bhriain of The Life Institute on 25 November debunking the false
statistics.

This encouraged us to obtain the statistics for Irish women
having abortions in England and Wales for fatal fetal abnormalities from the
Department of Health (DoH). According to the above there should have been 80%
of 1,500 or about 1,200 each year.

So how many were there? According to the DoH Ground E
abortions (those for fetal abnormality) for the years 2007 to 2011 were 27, 29,
42, 68 and 51 respectively.

But how many of these were for fatal abnormalities where, by John Halligan’s definition, the baby
‘would live for just minutes outside the womb’?

We are not told this specifically but we can make a reasonable estimate from the data available.

Of these the latter two conditions are very serious. Half of
infants with Edward’s
syndrome do not survive beyond the first week of life.The median lifespan
is 5–15 days. About 8% of infants survive longer than one year.

More than 80% of children with Patau’s syndrome die
within the first year of life.

Today the average life expectancy for a person with Down's
syndrome is between 50 and 60. A considerable number of people with Down's
syndrome live into their 60's.

So, even given the fact that these are all life-limiting conditions, it is
extremely unlikely that any of these 31 babies, if born, would have died within minutes of birth.

There were 12 babies aborted for a range of other conditions
including spina bifida (3) and cardiovascular disease (2). It would expected
that most of these also would not die within minutes of birth. Unlike those babies
with chromosomal abnormalities most of this group would be amenable to
treatment of one kind or another.

The only category where the babies might arguably have
fitted Halligan’s definition of ‘fatal’ was anencephaly. There were 8 abortions
on Irish women for this condition in 2011.

55% of babies with anencephaly, who are not
aborted, do not survive birth. If they are not stillborn, then they will
usually die within a few hours or days after birth from cardiorespiratory
arrest, although there are exceptional cases of babies with the condition
surviving up to two or three years.

So let’s say that about half of those with anencephaly,
about 4 in 2011, would fall into Halligan’s category of being stillborn or
dying within minutes of birth.

That’s four versus Halligan’s figure of 1,200. So the TD was
out by a factor of 300!

I am not in any way trying to suggest that carrying a baby that has a disability to term is not a huge challenge which requires great
courage, grace and support (see my article on anencephaly here).

But if we are to have this debate at all, then we must have
it based on the actual facts of the case, and not with reference to wildly spun
statistics that have been simply plucked out of the air to advance a certain political
agenda.

Telling lies in parliament is serious. If John Halligan
didn’t know they were lies then he is rather gullible and probably also
incompetent. If he did then it is a very serious matter indeed.

I wonder if he will be called to account for it? And I wonder if the Irish media will keep propagating his untruths?

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Kiwi, Christian and Medical

This blog deals mainly with matters at the interface of Christianity and Medicine. But I do also diverge into other subjects - especially New Zealand, rugby, economics, developing world, politics and topics of general Christian and/or medical interest. The opinions expressed here are mine and may not necessarily reflect the views of my employer or anyone else associated with me.

About Me

I am CEO of Christian Medical Fellowship, a UK-based organisation with 4,500 UK doctors and 1,000 medical students as members. The opinions expressed here however are mine, and may not necessarily reflect the views of CMF or anyone else associated with me.